


aftershock

by cold_century



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: 2X10 Aftermath, F/F, Let Jane Rizzoli swear 2k18, its what we deserve.jpg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 02:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13672359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cold_century/pseuds/cold_century
Summary: a post-remember me one-shot





	aftershock

**Author's Note:**

> friendly reminder that jane rizzoli only fought back when hoyt dared to touch maura isles

they don’t talk about it for two weeks.

 

they both think about it, they both have the nightmares, the waking up drenched in a cold sweat kind, the kind that makes your heart pound a million miles per hour in your chest so furiously it feels like it’s going to break your ribs. 

 

the kind where you wake up and your own  screams are the first thing you hear.

 

but they don’t talk about it. not to each other, not to anyone. 

 

it sits there, the gigantic, paralysingly terrifying elephant in the room.

 

it’s not denial. talking about it won’t suddenly make it real, it  _ is  _ real, the matching scars on their necks prove it. and that’s exactly why they don’t talk. they don’t need reminding that it happened, they don’t need to sit there and recall the way that everything had happened so fast, so violently. the way every nerve in their body was set on fire when the cold metal of the scalpel cut through their skin. the fact that when they close their eyes, the scene replays in vivid definition over and over and over again.

 

talking about it would remind them how close they came to losing everything. it would remind them that they are almost living the lives of dead people. the longer they stay silent, the more those feelings grow until things start to change. until hoyt starts to win again. and jane is not going to stand around and let that happen.

 

***

 

“something’s different, right?” jane mutters to frost as they reluctantly help themselves to what tastes like three-day-old coffee made with stanley’s socks.

 

“what d’you mean?” frost asks, taking the sugar from jane and heaping enough to make maura frown into his drink. jane looks up for her friend but then realises that, of course, maura isn’t there. she ignores the stabbing pain in her stomach and turns back to frost, stirring her coffee.

 

“i mean… i dunno, it just feels weird. and it shouldn’t, right? it should feel… over.”

 

frost shrugs, grabbing a cup, three creamers and sugars for korsak. “it’s only been two weeks. maybe it just needs more time.”

 

“maybe,” jane echoes. 

 

but that’s not right. all time seems to be doing is changing things and making it worse. it’s as though the pain is being dragged out. he’s gone and she’s standing there, not moving forward. none of them are.

 

“if you think me and korsak are treating you any different, we don’t mean to,” frost says suddenly. “that’s always been our rule. no matter what happens to you, we act like it’s normal because you don’t need pity and you don’t need change, you need work to be the same.”

 

“it’s not you,” jane says quickly, the gratitude she feels swelling in her chest. “and i appreciate it. this shit’s hard enough to deal with without you guys thinking i’m about to break or whatever…”

 

“but we’re here for you. you know, if you need to talk or anything.” frost says it with such sincerity that the back of jane’s throat goes dry and she struggles to find the words. but frost doesn’t seem to need to hear any and just squeezes her shoulder gently before walking back towards the elevators.

 

jane takes a second, only a second, then picks up her coffee and clears her throat, following frost.

 

he holds the door of the elevator open for her and pokes his head out when jane hesitates. “you coming?”

 

she changes her mind at the last moment, pressing the down arrow. “call me if you need anything,” she says as she gets into the other elevator and frost nods, frowning slightly.

 

the elevator doors open and she steps out into the crime lab, smiling and nodding at senior criminalist chang as she walks by to the morgue. when she raises her hand to push the door open, she glances at the scars on the back of her hand, then clenches and unclenches her fist before walking in.

 

maura is elbow deep in a chest cavity, staring fixated as she cuts away with expert precision. jane doesn’t know how she can still hold a scalpel after what happened to them. she supposes it’s just the same for maura as it is for her; they need their jobs, they need to have some grasp on normality.

 

but still, when maura notices jane walking over, she withdraws the scalpel quickly and places it out of sight behind the body. jane stands there, waiting, as maura picks up the lungs of their victim and places them in the bowl next to her.

 

“i don’t have anything for you yet,” maura says, breaking the unnaturally tense silence.

 

“i wasn’t asking if you did,” jane says, taking a careful step forward. this is the closest she’s been to maura at work for days. she knows maura is avoiding her; that’s what has changed.

 

“then what do you want?” maura asks, a slight edge to her voice that jane has never heard before. it crushes her.

 

“i want to talk to you,” she says quietly. “we need to talk.”

 

maura sighs and lifts the protective mask off her face, setting it down on the tray harder than necessary.

 

“i have a lot of work to do, jane. i’m sure they need you upstairs.”

 

jane ignores her. maura turns her back on her, rearranging her tools on the tray. she isn’t going to let maura walk away from her this time. she saved maura’s life, she isn’t going to stand there and watch idly as maura loses part of herself every day.

 

in the immediate aftermath, her own guilt had felt insurmountable. she would lay there at night and could not stop thinking _what if_ she had killed him that first time? _what if_ she had made maura stay behind that day? now, as she watches maura, she can’t help but smile; maura always hated the what ifs.

 

this is not the first time jane has had to deal with the repercussions of her meetings with charles hoyt. she’s grown used to them, she has always accepted what has happened and tried to move on. it doesn’t mean she’s okay. she’s not stupid enough to pretend anymore.

 

this wasn’t even the first time someone she loves had been in danger because of hoyt.

 

but maura had been the one caught in the crossfire this time. the what ifs don’t stretch to what could have been if she hadn’t killed hoyt. she won’t allow herself to think that. maura is alive. she is standing in front of jane. that is all that matters.

 

so her guilt had started to fade. it had happened, but they were alive. she had saved maura, even if she had indirectly put her in danger because of her earlier failures, because of her need to serve real justice to the man who had caused her a lifetime of nightmares and scars.

 

“we can talk while you work. just like we always do,” jane says and maura turns around.

 

“i would rather not be distracted.”

 

“this is important, maura.”

 

“no, jane, it isn’t. not right now. what is important is completing this autopsy to my exacting high standards so i can best help you solve this murder and bring another family peace and justice. that is what’s important. talking can wait.”

 

she says it with such fire in her voice that jane is momentarily stunned into silence.

 

“waiting only makes it harder,” she says when she finds her voice again. maura doesn’t appear to be listening, instead stripping off her gloves and moving over to the computer. “i waited too long that first time.”

 

jane follows her and she can tell that maura is looking at the screen without reading anything on it. 

 

“it took me three weeks before i came down here again,” jane says. “you know why?” she doesn’t wait for maura’s response. “because every time i saw you pick up a scalpel, i saw hoyt. right where you were standing. only for a second, if that, but it scared the shit out of me, maura, because i saw him instead of you. and you can’t ever understand how terrifying that was.”

 

she takes a step closer to her.

 

“point is, i didn’t talk about it for weeks. everything changed because of it and it was… it was horrible. i don’t want you to have to go through that, maura, so please, let’s just talk about it, okay? don’t make the same mistake i did because you’ll never forgive yourself.”

 

maura remains silent. she runs her bottom lip between her teeth, clearly lost in thought about what jane has said. then, without realising she’s doing so, her hand reaches up and covers the mark on her neck, the lasting reminder of what had happened that day.

 

jane’s fingers close gently over maura’s wrist and she jumps as though she’s just been electrocuted, staring up at jane with wide eyes, and dropping her hand from her neck, her wrist still in jane’s hand. her gaze falls to the floor, her hair falling across her neck and hiding the red scar from jane’s view.

 

“it’s bothering you, isn’t it?”

 

“it’s fine.”

 

“if it’s because you’re ashamed or whatever, don’t be. having scars doesn’t make you weak.”

 

“i know that,” maura snaps. “did i say i was ashamed?”

 

“you didn’t have to  _ say _ anything. your body language told me.” 

 

maura pulls her wrist free of jane’s hand which hovers for a moment in thin air before she drops it to her side. 

 

“and what’s my body language telling you now?” maura says, folding her arms and raising her chin to look jane in the eye.

 

“that you’re scared,” jane says simply and maura frowns, ever so slightly. “you’re trying to be brave and you’re trying to push me away by saying you’re fine, by crossing your arms and holding your head up high and telling me to back off. i’m not backing off. you’re not fine. none of this is fine.”

 

“i’d rather not talk about it. especially not in the middle of an autopsy,” maura says, unfolding her arms and turns back towards the body on the table. 

 

jane’s phone buzzes on her belt but she ignores it, following maura.

 

“so that’s it?” she says, standing opposite maura. “you’re going to lie to me and say you’re fine and go back to work like nothing ever happened?”

 

“they need you upstairs,” maura says, pulling on a new pair of gloves and picking up the lungs from the bowl, moving them to another tray.

 

“don’t do this, maura. don’t shut me out. we can’t pretend that nothing happened forever.”

 

“we’ve been acting as though nothing happened for the past two weeks, jane, and it’s worked just fine. so what difference is a whole lifetime of pretending?”

 

“only the difference between being alive and living. between feeling like the world is against you and realising that life can go on. pretending isn’t going to make things better, trust me, i’ve tried it that way. and it doesn’t work.”

 

“and yet you don’t talk to me about it either! so what’s changed, jane?”

 

“you!” jane shouts, her voice echoing around the room and maura finally looks up, her face drained of colour. “ _ you’ve _ changed, maura! you won’t even look at me anymore!”

 

“that’s not true -”

 

“yes, it is! even now you’re not looking at me! talk to me, maura, i’m the only one who gets it, okay? no shrink can understand what you’re going through like i can, and i’m not exactly grateful for it, but for god’s sake, just  _ talk to me _ .”

 

maura pulls off her gloves for the second time and when she looks at jane, there’s no warmth in her eyes.

 

“don’t you dare presume that you can understand me,  _ detective _ . we’re not the same. i have a lot of work to do, now get out.”

 

and, with as much coldness as she can muster in her expression, she glares at jane for another second before storming across the morgue, her heels snapping  loudly against the floor, and slamming the door to her office behind her.

 

jane is there before she can even start to feel her heart breaking. she hammers on the door, ignoring the sight of the crime lab technicians in the corner of her eye. 

 

“maura! locking yourself away isn’t going to make things better! you’re a genius, start acting like one!” she yells through the door but there’s no answer. with a growl of frustration, she slaps her hand against the door one last time before turning on her heel and walking out of the morgue.

 

only when she’s in the elevator, alone again, does she realise she’s crying.

 

***

 

by the time she’s back at her apartment, on her third beer, and halfway through the red sox game, her anger at maura has turned into an almost unbearable sadness.

 

she knows maura is stubborn. that she believes more in science than people to help her, an unwavering trust in the facts that even now, after what she has been through, she refuses to accept that her brain won’t just fix itself.

 

jane can’t compete with science.

 

she rubs a hand over her eyes, watching the screen numbly, the camera panning to a group of cheering fans stood high in the stands and even that fails to ignite something other than grief and loneliness inside her. the only thought that keeps her grounded is that maura is alive. they can get past this, in time. if it was the alternative, jane knows that no amount of time would heal her.

 

she grabs her empty beer bottle and puts it on the counter as she walks to the fridge, staring into it and feeling the cold air on her face. her hand moves automatically to grab another beer when a knock at the door makes her jump and she cracks her head on the top of the fridge.

 

swearing, she slams the door shut, massaging the top of her head. there’s another knock at the door and she grabs her gun from the top of the bookshelf, peering through the peephole.

 

what she sees on the other side makes her heart start thundering in her chest for a reason she can’t quite explain.

 

“may i come in?” maura asks after a few seconds of silence when jane opens the door.

 

jane bites back any snide comment, stepping back to allow maura to walk into her apartment. she places her gun back on the top of the bookshelf and locks the door behind her.

 

she leans against the door, hands tucked into the deep pockets of her sweatpants, watching as maura gently repositions the cushions on the couch and sits down, her hands curled into fists in her lap.

 

“drink?” jane asks abruptly and maura turns to face her and after a moment, she nods. jane pushes herself away from the door and grabs another beer from the fridge, taking a slight vindictive pleasure in the fact that maura doesn’t really drink beer.

 

but she takes the bottle anyway with a smile and a nod of thanks, pulling a coaster towards her. jane deliberately puts her own bottle down on the surface of the coffee table, seeing the slight twitch of maura’s hand as she goes to pass jane a coaster, too.

 

she senses it’s not the right move and her hand returns to her lap.

 

“who’s winning the match?” maura asks after another long silence, pointing to the tv.

 

“game,” jane corrects automatically, then gestures to the score in the top left corner. “we’re up six nothing.”

 

then she turns the television off.

 

“why’re you here, maura?” she asks bluntly, sinking back into the couch.

 

maura fiddles with the ring on her finger and jane can practically see her brain whirring. she doesn’t push maura, she knows what’s about to happen and it brings a relief that starts to chip away at the great weight in her stomach.

 

“you were right,” maura says eventually, looking up at jane and meeting her eye for the first time. “i think… i think we should talk.”

 

jane shifts in her seat so she’s facing maura. now she’s starting to feel nervous.

 

“okay,” she says. “then talk.”

 

she says it without any hint of annoyance or maddening smugness that she was right. there’s no need for it. all that matters is that maura has seen sense.

 

“i’m not sure how to begin,” maura admits, her shoulders sinking slightly as she looks away again, staring at the blank television screen.

 

“well for starters, i’m not a shrink,” jane says with a small laugh. “you don’t have to act like your sat next to one.”

 

“i’m sorry,” maura says. “i know you’re angry with me -”

 

“no, i’m not,” jane says, cutting maura off. “i’m not angry, i was worried. i didn’t want you to feel alone, and i wanted things to stop changing. we don’t have to be different just because of what we went through together, i don’t want that.”

 

“me neither,” maura says and for the first time in weeks, a real smile crosses her face. “i need you. i can’t rely on science, there’s no… there’s no rule for how you should feel after something like this. i suppose it’s different for everybody who experiences trauma.”

 

“i’m here. right here.”

 

“what do you think happened to me?” maura asks and jane’s stomach drops like she’s missed a step going downstairs at how scared maura sounds. “why am i acting like this? you were right, only you could possibly understand…”

 

jane clears her throat and stares at the wall past maura, thinking.

 

“i think…” she says slowly. “i think that you’re so put together all the time that you’ve forgotten what it feels like to fall apart.”

 

maura drops her gaze to her hands but at the touch of jane’s hand on her knee, she looks up again.

 

“but it happens, okay? people fall apart.  _ i _ fell apart. but you pick yourself up, you put yourself back together again and you move on. you live. we survived, maura, we beat him. so no more sitting here and not trying  to put yourself back together because if you do that, he wins.”

 

her words seem to do the trick. maura straightens up again, a look of steely determination in her eyes. it makes a smile tug at the corners of jane’s lips, and she squeezes maura’s knee.

 

“i’m sorry about what you saw when you saw me holding a scalpel,” maura says and it’s so unexpected, jane’s hand slips from her knee. “i never knew.”

 

jane shrugs. “because i never talked about it. see? it gets you nowhere, not talking. it took too long for me to get over that.”

 

there’s another long pause. maura is staring so intensely at jane that she has to look away, just for a second.

 

“what… what do you remember?” jane asks after a while, her throat suddenly dry. she’s not sure she wants to know the answer, almost as though the longer maura keeps quiet, the longer jane can pretend that maura wasn’t really in the room at the time. the longer she can pretend that maura didn’t suffer because of her failures. 

 

maura takes a sip of her beer, carefully considering the question. 

 

“i remember thinking that he would kill you straight away,” she says. “i forgot how he worked, i was so… scared. i forgot, for a moment, what he did to his victims. and then… then i remembered. and i remember feeling like my entire body had flooded with ice, as though…”

 

“you froze.”

 

“a panic reaction,” maura says. “your senses can’t understand what it’s seeing, feeling, hearing. your system is overwhelmed and there are so many options for a reaction that… yes, your body freezes. stuck between choices of how best to save itself.”

 

there’s something in maura’s voice that has jane moving so close that their knees are touching.

 

“don’t feel guilty,” she says firmly. “there was nothing you could’ve done. like you said, you froze. nothing you could’ve done,” she says again.

 

“you didn’t freeze,” maura says.

 

“no, i didn’t,” jane admits. “but that doesn’t make you guilty of anything. it’s just my job, maura. it’s what i was  trained to do, to get past that freezing and act.”

 

“and your voice,” maura says as though she hasn’t heard jane.

 

“what?”

 

“i didn’t see you but i heard you,” maura says. “the way your voice broke. not with grief, but… anger. rage. i never knew you had that kind of rage in you, it was… terrifying to hear you like that, full of so much anger that you couldn’t contain it, you simply had to get it out, you had to let the world know how… how  _ angry _ you were. i knew nothing would stop you after that.”

 

“i’m sorry,” jane says, taken aback. “i didn’t mean to scare you.”

 

“you didn’t, not really. it was more...” maura drifts off, searching for the right word. “in a strange way it was reassuring. for the first time, even though i was stunned, i felt as though we could get out of this alive. i knew you wouldn’t stop until you had tried everything. it was… it was very brave.”

 

jane can feel red, embarrassed heat rising up her neck and she picks up her beer only for something to do with her hands. it means more coming from maura than anyone else. she feels a certain amount of pride she never felt when she was handed a meaningless award for her bravery after shooting herself in the stomach.

 

“i just did what i was trained to do,” she repeats, wiping away the condensation on the bottle with her thumb before drinking.

 

“how did you do it?” maura asks. “when you fought back, what were you thinking?”

 

“i wasn’t.”

 

“what do you mean?”

 

jane lowers her bottle, staring at the mark the bottle has left on her coffee table.

 

“i wasn’t thinking. there was nothing to think about. he was going to kill you and i couldn’t let that happen, it wasn’t even a thought, nothing crossed my mind, it was just a feeling, like… like my body had been programmed to fight… for you. fight for you like it wouldn’t do for me.”

 

“don’t be ridiculous. you would have saved yourself, too. you did save yourself.”

 

“no, i didn’t. i mean, okay, yeah i saved myself, but that wasn’t why. and it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t got to you first. it was all instinct, i just fought back, and i fought back for you, to save  _ you _ . if i didn’t die in the process, well… that’s a bonus, i guess.”

 

when she looks back at maura, she sees tears rolling down her cheeks and her heart skips a beat. 

 

“what -”

 

“don’t ever say that again,” maura whispers. “your life isn’t… it’s not dispensable, jane. your life isn’t just some added extra, it’s not a bonus, not to me.”

 

the words get stuck in jane’s throat. she just watches as maura wipes her cheeks, her hands falling back into her lap. she feels ashamed at what she said. she had no idea the effect her words, her belief, the truth, would have on maura. she has no idea what to say to that, but she’s spared more silence when maura starts talking again.

 

“i can’t believe you did that for me.”

 

what maura must have felt when jane made that throwaway comment about her life is exactly what jane is feeling now. it’s more than she can take.

 

“really? you thought i would’ve just let you…” 

 

her eyes glaze over and she looks at the floor but not before the tears start to fall and drip down off the end of her nose. but when she speaks again, her voice is just as level and controlled as it has been.

 

“i told you. i didn’t know what i was doing until it was over. it was like i wasn’t even there, my body just… fought back. seeing him… seeing him standing over you just…”

 

she takes a deep breath, steadying herself and closes her eyes until the tears fade away. it’s another minute before maura speaks again.

 

“sometimes… sometimes you encounter a scenario where your body reacts as true as it can to its primal instincts. when you’re confronted with such terrible danger, your body acts in a way you didn’t even know was possible. it happens most often when the danger is happening to someone you…” her voice fades.

 

“someone you love.”

 

she hadn’t meant to say it. they had both known how maura’s sentence was going to end. but saying it out loud, hearing the echo in her mind, makes it all the more real. 

 

she had saved someone she loves. she likes to think she would have done the same for anyone who was in that room. she’s sure she would have, she wasn’t ever going to let hoyt take another life. but it hadn’t been just  _ anyone _ .

 

it was maura. it had always been maura.

 

she finds every ounce of courage she has to look at maura. her eyes are wide with shock and jane knows that she understands the kind of love jane means. how could she not? it’s the worst kind of tension imaginable. jane just wants to run out of her own apartment and get away from what could be the worst mistake of her life, telling maura before she’s ready to accept the truth.

 

she swallows the sudden lump in her throat, trying to find something to say, anything, just to break the silence because she can’t bear it for another second. she doesn’t know where to go from here, how to even begin this conversation when their last one hasn’t even ended.

 

but then, she sees the pure joy in maura’s eyes. it’s as though she’s flicked a switch, and something that had been hidden has suddenly burst into light and it’s blinding and beautiful and jane simply cannot look away.

 

the need to run vanishes instantly. she has never felt more grounded.

 

and then -

 

“we don’t have to talk about it now.”

 

but it’s not a dismissal. maura’s hands reach over and cover jane’s, her thumbs brushing against the scars on the back of her hands, and jane finally looks away and her eyes drift down to maura’s neck where her own scar is.

 

“tomorrow. we can talk about it tomorrow.”

 

it’s then that it hits jane, when she’s following the thin, red line that curves in the shadow of maura’s hair against her neck. the full impact of what she had done two weeks ago in the prison infirmary. she had done what she had always known she would do if maura had been in that kind of danger. 

 

she had saved her life. and because of that, they still have tomorrow.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i rewatched this episode and forgot how great it is and how angry i was they never went further into the aftermath. thank u and goodnight


End file.
